Oscar Nominee Diane Lane Will Headline Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard on Broadway

This defines meta! Diane Lane, who made her Broadway debut as a child in the 1977 revival of The Cherry Orchard, starring Meryl Streep, is returning to the Anton Chekhov classic. Directed by Simon Godwin, the Oscar nominee will headline the previously reported new Great White Way adaptation of the play by Stephen Karam (The Humans). The limited engagement is now scheduled to begin previews on September 15 (from September 8) and officially open on October 16 (from October 6) at Roundabout’s American Airlines Theatre.

Lane most recently starred opposite Bryan Cranston and Helen Mirren in Trumbo. In 2015, she returned to the New York stage in Lincoln Center’s world premiere The Mystery of Love and Sex; other theater credits include Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth at the Goodman Theater in Chicago. Oscar nominated for Unfaithful and Emmy nominated for Cinema Verite, Lane’s numerous additional screen credits include Secretariat, Under the Tuscan Sun, Nights in Rodanthe, Hollywoodland, Must Love Dogs, A Perfect Storm, My Dog Skip, A Walk on the Moon, Chaplin, The Outsiders, Rumble Fish, The Cotton Club and Lonesome Dove.

First produced in Moscow in 1904, The Cherry Orchard is Chekhov’s masterpiece about a family on the edge of ruin—and a country on the brink of revolution. The story of Lyubov Ranevskaya (Lane) and her family’s return to their fabled orchard to forestall its foreclosure, the play captures a people—and a world—in transition, and presents us with a picture of humanity in all its glorious folly. By turns tragic and funny, The Cherry Orchard still stands as one of the great plays of the modern era.